In middle age Alfred Brendel looked disconcertingly like Eric Morecambe – but, unlike the comedian in his legendary encounter with André Previn, he played all the right notes in the right order.

OK, so perhaps I’m selling the maestro a bit short: I do think Brendel, who died on 17 June at the age of 94, was a peerless interpreter of the Austro-German repertoire, and for a time in the 1970s had a better claim than any other pianist to ‘own’ the Beethoven and late Schubert piano sonatas. But some of the media tributes have been embarrassingly uncritical, implying that Brendel was universally loved. He wasn’t, and he didn’t want to be.

The Austrian maestro – born in Moravia, but then so was Mahler and no one thinks of him as Czech – lived in Hampstead for more than half a century. Even those who loved him found his cleverness intimidating. ‘I don’t think Alfred has ever had an unoriginal thought,’ said his friend Isaiah Berlin. In the Guardian last week Simon Rattle described Brendel’s ‘occasional sharp edges’ as ‘deeply loveable’.

To quote our late Queen, recollections may vary. A young pianist once found himself sitting next to the great man at a dinner. Brendel congratulated him on his debut album........

© The Spectator